Introduction to Business [antikvár]

PREFACE Our primary objective in this first revision of Introduction to Business has been to keep the subject of business significant and exciting to students. At the same time, we have introduced a number of quantitative techniques, which management is now using to aid in decision making. We have hoped to motivate students to a keen interest in the whole of business and in specific areas. This book—designed for an introductory course in business —has been written so that students majoring in business, as well as students majoring in other fields, can gain basic knowledge of business functions and operations. In taking a management orientation, we have aimed to give students an overview of the interrelationships among the func- tional areas of business he will study in more detail later. We have avoided going into great detail in any one area. Instead, we have presented generalizations about facets of business the manager of the future will have to consider as he faces dynamic environmental changes. Our emphasis is much more on the why than the how. For example, our treatment of accounting is frankly not intended to cover the procedures of accounting; rather, we have simply explained what accounting does for a business, and included only information that is essential to sound decision making on the part of management. Part One, concerned with the evolution of modern business, opens with a chapter on the development of business in a free society. This is followed by a chapter on the organization of business units within this society. Part Two considers the tools that the modern manager uses as controls. A new chapter on automatic data processing has been added to the chapters on accounting and statistics. Part Three develops the subject of finance in chapters on finance management, investment manage- ment, and risk management. Part Four—in chapters on business